Andrew Thornton Challenge – To Bee or Not To Bee – Beadsophisticate

Sweet Honey bead blend

I couldn’t resist the title, not that I tried very hard to do so. You’ll see why in a minute.

This month’s Allegory Gallery challenge by Andrew Thornton is a honey of kit, appropriately entitled “Sweet Honey”. As usual, the kit was packed full of goodies.

Sweet Honey kit

The mystery component is always a pendant handmade by Andrew and always fits the theme, but this time he outdid himself. The pendant looks just like a honeycomb, or what I imagine a honeycomb looks like. It’s not as if I’ve ever got close enough to a beehive to see one. I’m allergic to bee stings, and consequently afraid of bees. But I digress.

I used the seed beads that came with the kit to whip up some flower beads and strung them with some of the other beads in the kit to make a necklace for the pendant. Then I made a bee out of polymer clay and painted it. There is serendipity involved, because I was riding home on the Metro after work the day I was planning to paint it and thinking I would need to find an image on the internet. I turned the page of my newspaper, and there was an article on the honeybee, complete with a color picture!

So I painted my bee and perched it on the pendant. But then I was shaken with doubt. Does it look better with it or without it?

Sweet Honey necklace with bee

Sweet Honey necklace without bee

Here are closeups of the pendant portion, with and without bee.

Pendant with bee

Pendant, no bee

To bee or not to bee? Tell me what you think in the comments.

Here are the links to the other participants in the challenge:

Alison Herrington

Shaiha Williams

Ann Schroeder

Christina Hickman

Dolores Raml

Cheri Reed

Sarajo Wentling

Karin Grosset Grange

Gloria Allen

Andrew Thornton, Kate Enniss-Reid, and Sandi Bass